For I will cleanse, &c.—cleansed— For I will avenge, &c. avenged. Houbigant reads, I will avenge their blood, and not spare; and the Lord shall inhabit Zion. The reader will see a variety of different interpretations in Pocock: but none of these, says Dr. Chandler, satisfy me. If we read the former part of the words by way of interrogation, the sense will appear strong and beautiful, and the answer in the latter clause just and striking. "Judah shall dwell for ever; but shall I declare their blood innocent? Shall I declare their enemies innocent who have shed their blood, and suffer it to go unrevenged?—I will not declare it innocent. I will not absolve the blood which has been spilled, nor suffer it to go unpunished." Thus, Exodus 34:7 it is said of God, that he will by no means clear the guilty. "Thus be my vengeance executed upon their enemies; and by taking my people under my especial care, it shall be known that Jehovah is present with them, and favours Zion with his peculiar protection."
REFLECTIONS.—1st, The sufferings of God's faithful people, and the destruction of their enemies, have their appointed periods.
1. In those days of the Messiah, I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem; many of them by the preaching of the Gospel being called into the glorious liberty of the sons of God, from the bondage of corruption, more intolerable than that of Egypt or Chaldea. This also may have respect to their recovery from their present dispersion.
2. Their enemies shall be reckoned with; which some apply to Sennacherib and the Assyrians, and suppose the days spoken of to refer to the recovery of the dispersed Jews, who had fled or been taken prisoners on that invasion. Others apply it to the Romans and neighbouring nations, who had severely wasted God's heritage: and some imagine that they see in this prophesy the destruction of the Turkish and Papal powers, assembled to make war against the saints of the most High, after all their former persecutions of them, whose quarrel God will now signally espouse, and avenge their wrongs.
3. The charges lying against these enemies of his people are for their cruelty, robbery, insult, and oppression. They scattered them among the nations; seized and sold them for slaves, particularly to the Grecians, removing them far from their own land, which they parted among themselves; either Titus parcelled it out to his soldiers, or the neighbouring nations, each seized that portion which lay contiguous to them: and they have cast lots for my people; in such vast numbers were they taken captive, and their value so small, that their conquerors gave a boy for the hire of a harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink. Thus in drinking and fornication they squandered the prey that they had taken; the common vices of persecutors. God's gold and silver they had plundered; what he had given to his people, and regarded still as his own: and his pleasant things, perhaps the vessels or treasures of his sanctuary, they had carried to the temple of their idols, adding sacrilege and impiety to robbery. Well may God, therefore, expostulate with them, What have ye to do with me, O Tyre and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? which may be put for all the enemies of Christ's church and people in every age. What have ye to do with me? how dare you distress my people; what provocation have they given? will ye render me a recompense? Have they done you any injury, which you would thus retaliate? No: they were quiet in the land, and had never justly offended them. Note; (1.) No sweetness of temper, or amiableness of disposition, can soften the enmity of the wicked against the work of God. (2.) We must not think it strange, if we receive the greatest unkindness from those whom we have ever studied to oblige.
4. God threatens to return their wickedness into their own bosom. If ye recompense me, pretending to retaliate wrongs that they had received from God's people; swiftly and speedily will I return your recompense upon your own head, and give tribulation to those who troubled them. While God recovered his people from the places whither they had dispersed and sold them, he will sell the children of these his enemies into the hands of the men of Judah; and they, in just retaliation of the wrongs which they have received, shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off. And for this the veracity of God is engaged; the Lord hath spoken it: the accomplishment of which prophet, some refer to the days of the Maccabees; others, to the future destruction of the persecuting powers of Popery or Mohammedism: certain it is, however, that all the enemies of Christ's church and believing people shall at the last be made their footstool. See the critical notes.
2nd, Commentators greatly differ about the times referred to in the prophesies contained in this chapter from Joel 3:9 to Joel 3:17. Some suppose them fulfilled in the destruction of Sennacherib, or the Assyrians, or Antiochus; others, that they look forward to more distant ages, and foretel the ruin of all the antichristian persecuting powers, whether Pagan, Papal, or Mahometan; and many expressions in the Revelations, which seem to speak of that event, are borrowed from this chapter. Some still carry the accomplishment farther; and read in it the great day of final judgment, when the wicked shall be cast into hell, and the glorified saints of God receive the kingdom of their Father.
1. A defiance is sent to all God's enemies. Let them collect their forces; muster their armies; furnish themselves with weapons; encourage each other for the conflict; unite their assembled legions; hasten to the field of battle, rouse up their courage, and stand in array. Multitudes, multitudes, innumerable shall be the host in the valley of decision, the same as the valley of Jehoshaphat; which may not mark any particular place, but the end for which they are assembled, Jehoshaphat signifying the judgment of the Lord, who will there plead with, condemn, and destroy his enemies; and the day is near.
They who refer this to the slaughter of the antichristian powers, Revelation 16:14; Revelation 16:16; Revelation 19:18-21 suppose, that they will in the latter day be gathered together in the land of Judaea, to make war on the saints of the Most High, and by some eminent stroke of vengeance from God be utterly consumed.
Applying it to the day of judgment, we may learn, (1.) That it is near, uncertain when, but surely approaching: highly therefore does it concern us to be always ready. (2.) That day will fix our final state, whether for happiness or misery eternal, according to the unerring decisions of the God of truth and judgment.
2. At the prophet's prayer the executioners of vengeance appear. Cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord; either the holy angels, or the Christian powers under Christ their leader, going down to the valley of decision, to join battle with their foes. Put ye in the sickle; for the harvest is ripe: come, get ye down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; their enemies are ripe for judgment, see Revelation 14:18-20; Revelation 19:15-20 and the reason is given, because their wickedness is great.
3. To the impenitent sinner, or antichristian foe, that day will be full of horror. The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining, according to the description given in scripture of the great day of judgment. Or figuratively it refers to the kings and princes of the earth, that are enemies to the Messiah's reign, who shall be cast down before the armies of the living God, when the Lord shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; appearing on the behalf of his church and people, and spreading terror and dismay among their enemies: and the heavens and the earth shall shake; the mightiest will tremble before him; or as at the day of final judgment it will be seen, when the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the earth shall be burnt up. Woe to the wicked! who then shall find no shelter, no rock to hide, no mountain to cover their guilty heads.
4. The saints of God will then triumph and rejoice, for the Lord will be the hope of his people; he who had ever been the object of their hope and trust, will not then disappoint them, but will be their refuge in this day of evil: and the strength of the children of Israel; supporting his faithful people through all their conflicts, and crowning them at last with victory. So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God, by happy experience of his power and grace; dwelling in Zion my holy mountain; in the midst of the church of his faithful saints. Then shall Jerusalem be holy, or holiness; all the saints of God shall be perfect, as their Father who is in heaven is perfect: and there shall no strangers pass through her any more; no enemy being left to hurt them, no hypocrite or ungodly persons being any longer found among them.
3rdly, The great and precious comprized in the conclusion of this chapter, from Joel 3:18 to the end, may refer to the restoration of the Jews, and above all to the universal reign of Christ.
1. There shall be the most abundant plenty, either of temporal good things, or rather of spiritual blessings, diffused among the faithful. The wine and milk of gospel-grace should flow down like torrents from the hills, refreshing, strengthening, comforting the members of Christ's church; and from him, the ever-flowing, overflowing fountain, shall the healing streams go forth, watering the valley of Shittim, a barren valley beyond Jordan, which may signify the Gentile world, and intimate the fruitfulness which this watering of the sanctuary should produce, and the extent of the Redeemer's grace, even to the most distant corners of the earth.
2. The inveterate enemies of the church shall be destroyed. Egypt and Edom had often shewn their implacable hatred against Judah, and shed innocent blood in the land; but they shall now be made perpetual desolations. And these nations are the figures of the present persecutors of God's people, particularly of Rome, called Egypt mystically; Revelation 11:8 and red with the blood of saints and martyrs; but blood shall now be given her to drink, together with all the other persecuting powers, Pagan or Mahometan, who will perish together. Or if this be applied to the last great day, then death, sin, and Satan, the most mortal foes of the saints, shall be destroyed together and for ever.
3. The faithful people of God shall in these glorious days enjoy undisturbed repose. Judah shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation; to the end of time the church of Christ shall be preserved safe from all the attacks of the gates of hell: or in the eternal state of bliss, the faithful shall dwell safely in mansions of glory. For I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed; pardoning all their guilt, saving them from the power of all their sins, and destroying the very being of sin in them: for the Lord dwelleth in Zion, and therefore his faithful people may comfortably and confidently expect to be made partakers of the fulness of this his great salvation.